Damn. And Ethan was likely to ask for something big in return for his reluctant silence. I folded the shirt, mental y weighing a debt to Marc against facing my father’s wrath. Talk about a rock and a hard place. Groaning in resignation, I dropped the folded shirt onto the bed. “Fine. Within reason.”

“Agreed.” He grinned again. “Should we shake?”

I shrugged; he could have asked for a lot more. He took the hand I held out and kept it for a moment, as if he might kiss it rather than shake it. Or maybe he was considering biting me. His fingers were warm against mine and comfortably familiar. I smiled, but Marc didn’t notice. He was staring intently at his injured ankle, as if trying to figure something out.

He let go of my hand, and his towel gaped, exposing a wide slice of bare thigh as he pulled his wounded leg onto the bed between us, turning to face me. His eyes were somber, his frown intense. “Faythe, listen.” He grabbed my arms as if to shake me, but he wasn’t mad this time. He was worried.

“Sara and Abby weren’t just tossed into the back of someone’s car. They couldn’t have been. You know how hard it is to catch a cat. We twist, and scratch, and yowl. And we bite.” His eyes dropped to his ankle between us on the comforter.

“Even in human form we fight. Remember when Ethan turned twenty-one? It took five of us to wrestle his keys away from him.”

“Yeah.” The bite mark on my left arm guaranteed I’d never forget it.

“How easy do you think it would be to subdue a scared cat, even a seventeen-year-old tabby?”

I thought about it. I real y, seriously thought about it and decided it would be nearly impossible to do without attracting unwanted attention, even in the dark.

We’re strong, we’re stubborn, and we fight when we’re cornered. My hands clenched around handfuls of my rumpled comforter, my arms tightening beneath his grip.

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying they were probably disabled. Maybe shot.” He let go of me but his eyes never left mine. “Faythe, no matter what anyone else says today to make the Wades and the Di Carlos feel better, there’s a good chance Abby and Sara are dead.”

I stared at him, numb. I was tingling al over, trying to swal ow my own pulse.

I’d heard what he said, and I understood it. But I just couldn’t believe it, even though I’d been thinking the same thing right before my hunt. They couldn’t be dead. Abby was barely seventeen years old, and Sara was only twenty. Death just wasn’t an option for people that young.

But it happened to cats in the jungle every day.

“I’m not trying to scare you,” he said. “I just want you to be prepared.”

I nodded, but my head barely moved. It felt like it weighed fifty pounds.

Two short, sharp knocks came from the hal , and we turned to look as my door opened. Parker stuck his head in, drawing my attention away from Marc and from thoughts I didn’t want to think. “Faythe, your dad wants to see you in his office.”

“Now?” Marc snapped.

I glanced at him, surprised by his tone.

“Yeah. Now.” Parker pushed the door open farther and tossed Marc a bundle of clothes. “I’m leaving to pick up the Di Carlos, but I’l be back in a couple of hours.” He looked at me with something bordering on sympathy. I guess he thought being chewed out by both Marc and my father in the same hour was enough punishment for anyone. I had to agree. “Your mom set up a buffet in the kitchen.

She says you should eat before everyone gets here.”

Yeah, that sounded like my mother, more worried about my stomach than my head. Or my hide.

I glanced at my clock radio, surprised to see that it was nearly three o’clock.

Marc and I had been talking for ages. Or maybe my run in the woods had taken longer than I’d thought. My stomach growled, as if to highlight the passage of time, and I realized I hadn’t eaten anything since I’d Shifted. No wonder I was starving.

“Any word on who’s coming?” Marc asked, reaching down to grab his jeans from the floor where they’d landed.

“Yeah.” Parker leaned against the door frame. “Michael said al ten Alphas are coming. Apparently they al want a say on how we handle this. Four are bringing their wives, and Nick Davidson’s bringing his daughter.”

All ten? I thought, wondering if I’d heard him wrong. Wow. That was every Alpha from every territory in the country. We hardly ever had perfect attendance, even at scheduled meetings.

Marc stood up, one hand holding his pants by the waistband, the other on the towel around his waist. “Where are they staying?” He gave the towel a tug, and it dropped to the floor.

I jumped up fast enough to get a head rush, and scurried over to my dresser, slipping my watch over my wrist to avoid staring at him.

Parker cleared his throat, disguising a chuckle at my reaction. “Michael made reservations for everyone in town, but Mr. Davidson asked if Nikki could stay here.”

“Mom wil love that.” I turned to face the room again, my blushing under control. My mother loved al kids, especial y dainty little girls like Nikki Davidson. As a child, I was a constant source of frustration for her, with my skinned knees and torn skirts. When I was nine, I blew up a Laura Ashley doll with one of Ethan’s firecrackers. That was the last time she ever tried to make a lady out of me. At least openly. She’d resorted to passive-aggressive tactics ever since.

Marc zipped up his pants, and my eyes were pulled toward the sound. The waistband of his jeans left the top curve of his hipbones exposed, and those masculine points seemed to hold me captive for a moment. When I could, I jerked my eyes away, and they landed on his shirt, crumpled at the end of my bed, abandoned. He’d been tossing shirts there for years, since long before his clothes had any business being on my bedroom floor. My theory was that he liked having me return them. He took advantage of any occasion that required me to seek out his attention. But it was hard to get mad this time. The missing shirt definitely improved the view.